Oh yeah, I agree. It wasn’t supposed to be a parody; the filmmakers tried to show every character the way they really existed. Whether or not they succeeded is a different question, but other than Frank Stack, all the characters of any importance in the A.S. film are meant to be an accurate representation of that character and how s/he impacted the lives of Harvey and Joyce, within the confines of dramatic narrative.
–Cliffy
I like the man’s artwork, I thought the film was well done, but after seeing the film, I don’t think I like the man himself. He came across as a selfish, whiney nebbish. This may not be how he truly is in real life, but that’s how it felt to me. I agree, it was disturbing.
Crumb makes no secret of his fetishes. None of them are Pedophilic. He likes large women with large hind ends. There are very few little girls built like this. Also, he seems like a pretty straight-forward guy, not a dissembler.
As a weirdo myself (though nowhere near as weird as Crumb), I’m tired of everyone assuming the worst about weirdos. We’re the least likely people to be pedophiles. If you read news stories about kiddie porn and child molesters, you surely have noticed the aura of bland normalacy that real child molesters have. They need to cultivate that to get close to children. The person you have to worry about isn’t the strange artist like Crumb, but the overly friendly little league coach, who spends too much time giving extra coaching to a few special players.
Sophie was interviewed for The Comics Journal recently by Bruce N. Duncan, a San Francisco cartoonist well-known for S&M and fetish cartoons. My immediate reaction was “Thank God, I was worried that Soph didn’t have enough pervy older men in her life!”
I agree. Foucault needs 300 pages to say what Crumb can depict—with humor—in a few panels. And this is coming from a philosophy professor. I’m not a comic-geek, so my exposure to Crumb has always been sporadic, but the best of what I’ve seen has always impressed me immensely. Although the messenger is often cranky and bitter, the message is absolutely correct: most of human activity is just so much simian shit-slinging, although some monkeys have better arms than others. Not everything he does is great—that’s not possible—and his worst stuff can be puerile. But that Crumb can deliver this message with humor and a unique mastery of his medium lends his best work a tragic element that is shockingly effective in the context of a comic strip.
Good thread. I’ll just toss in a description of what I think is the pivotal point in the movie: They showed a number of pages from brother Chuck’s well-done but increasingly wordy kids’ comics, followed by notebooks with page after page of illegible scrawl, starkly illustrating his descent into mental illness. As I recall, there was an audible gasp from the theater audience.
Heh. I can relate. My parents had a fairly large collection of underground comics - mostly featuring Crumb’s work - which they just left laying around. I can remember reading these from, well, as long as I can remember. Sesame Street and R. Crumb were the two predominant artistic experiences of my childhood.
That said, they didn’t really freak me out. I thought they were funny, or just confusing. Some of it was gross, a lot just went over my head. I think the guy has some messed-up ideas about women, but otherwise I came out of the experience surprisingly unscathed. And that’s saying something, considering that my earliest exposure to the idea of “sex” came from these comics. :eek:
I saw the documentary years ago, when it first came out, and agree it’s a superb portrait. But I don’t feel I really need to see it again…
<eddie izzard> That guy who lives in the park, in the cave… he wore women’s underwear. Ah, that explains it. No no no! Weirdo transvestite! </executive transvestite>
I knew very little about Crumb when I saw the movie… what 10 years ago now? It made me a fan of his and his wife’s.
I’ve seen American Splendor. I liked it a lot. Afterward I went and bought the trade paperback that was released around the same time.
I certainly didn’t suspect that he was molesting his daughter. He’s weird, but not like that. He seemed to have a genuine affection for her. By the way, according to IMDB, she’s the one who did the art in Enid’s notebook in Ghost World. That’s pretty cool.
I liked the scenes with his son. The part where he said he wanted to show affection for his dad but his dad just couldn’t do it was pretty revealing. I wonder if he’s the kind of guy that cares more for people than he’s able to let on.
Agreed that the notebooks filled with brother Charles’ “compulsive graphomania” in Robert’s words, were an absolutely chilling moment. I couldn’t help but be reminded of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” in “The Shining”, and then realized that this wasn’t fiction. Robert’s neutral rendering, suggesting that it wasn’t really out of the ordinary, underscored just how far gone Charles was.
There was nothing sick about Robert’s relationship with his daughter. I remember the way she sassily complained when he fiddled with the TV: “Everything has to be black and white… everything has to be old-fashioned!” It was what any normal, well-adjusted child would have said to a weirdo like her father.
I saw Crumb in the theater with some friends. I’m surpised by posts saying he’s the heathy, normal one in the family. We all thought the brother sitting on a bed of nails was the healthy, well adjusted one.
Re Crumb, the Man
I hate it when anybody rails against American society and then instead of trying to change things, moves to another country where they automatically assume things will be all better. If your record collection is so precious, pack it better. He did seem to be trying hard to be a good father.
Re Crumb, the Artists
Meh. He’s never really done anything for me. I dislike the misogyny I see in his work. Other than that, I don’t really have a response to him.
Crumb’s problem is with the human race, not American society. And I did not get the impression he thought everything was gonna be better in France. IIRC, he haltingly answered the comic store clerk’s query about why he was moving there, “Ask my wife” (I wish there was a ‘whipped’ smilie), adding that France was ‘slightly less evil’ than America.
Anyway, I don’t see how much Crumb could influence America beyond what he’s already done through his work – the guy ain’t gonna run for councilman. And I’m sure he’s paid more taxes than I have.
I know very little about visual art, but I find his drawing tends to ‘draw’ me in, and sometimes, his writing makes me think about my beliefs. Crumb’s statements on race and sex make me recall George Bernard Shaw’s answer to how you create great art: Offend the largest number of people (This is not the same as trying to be the a ‘shock jock’ to a subset of people, which invariably endears you to another subset).
:dubious: What you need is quite the reverse of that, Talon! Drop some fucking acid!
[robert crumb]
CAMPBELL’S SOUP KIDS: Hey, Mom! Let’s have nigger hearts for lunch!
WILDMAN SAM: Sho’ nuff! EVeryone loves the taste of Wildman Sam’s Pure Nigger hearts!
[/rc]
See, I don’t buy what he says about that joke being some kind of social commentary. He probably just thought it up as an idea that was so crazy and offensive it would be funny, which I think it is.
Did anyone think the brother with the bed of nails was possibly a drug addict or an ex-drug addict? He had that kind of deteriorated look. I’m no expert on drugs, so I wouldn’t know. And was the passing of the cloth through his body a normal meditative practice? That really weirded me out.
I thought Charles sounded like a really intelligent guy. It’s just that he gave up on life. Maybe if his mental condition had been diagnosed earlier on, he’d have had a chance. I liked his sort of “wrinkled” art style.
And that should be enough!
Yep. I think Unca Cecil adresses it when answering a question about swallowing string. I’ve also seen it before on Ripley’s and such.